Prof. Dr. Gerhard Berz is a pioneer in the field of climate change, natural hazardsand disaster mitigation in the insurance industry. Since 2006 he has been honorary professor at the University of Munich. Prior to this he was the head of the Geo risks research department at Munich Reinsurance Company for 30 years. He has held many important memberships, amongst other in the IPCC.

Ola Haug is a research scientist at the Statistics Department of Norwegian Computing Center (NR) in Oslo since ten years. He works with basic and applied statistical modelling issues for public and private sector. Over the past few years, Ola has engaged in climate research and the impacts of climate change. In particular, he has charged a major contract research project for Gjensidige Forsikring on current and future water damage to buildings.

Ola graduated in Industrial Mathematics from the Norwegian Technical University (NTH) in Trondheim in 1993. Before joining NR, he held a project engineer position in an oceanographic company.

Joerg Heumader, Director (ret.), Lecturer, Federal Service for Torrent and Avalanche Control, Tyrol, University for Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna

Dipl.Ing. Joerg Heumader is director (ret.) of the
Austrian Federal Service for Torrent, Erosion and Avalanche Control
District Office "Upper Inn Valley".

Silvio Funtowicz, Member of Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC), European Commission - Joint Research Centre

Silvio Funtowicz taught mathematics, logic and research methodology in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During the decade of 1980 he was a Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, England. He is now a member of the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC), European Commission - Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC).
He is the author of Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy (1990, Kluwer, Dordrecht) in collaboration with Jerry Ravetz, and numerous papers in the field of environmental and technological risks and policy-related research. He has lectured extensively and he is a member of the editorial board of several publications and the scientific committee of many projects and international conferences.

Jan Sendzimir is an ecologist in the Risk and Vulnerability Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. He studies non-linear transitions between regimes that manage social-ecological systems. He works with concepts (resilience, adaptive capacity, vulnerability) and tools (adaptive management) that address the challenge of change that is difficult or impossible to reverse.
He currently directs work packages in two EU 6th framework projects (NeWater and SCENES) on research applied to management policy issues with complex combinations of ecological, economic and socio-political factors that occur at different scales within relatively large areas such as river basins. To help integrate science, policy and local practice he uses conceptual and formal modeling to facilitate participatory processes (group model building, scenario development) that guide research and policy development related to the sustainable development of communities and ecosystems in arid regions (Sahel and Kalahari) and river systems in Europe and Asia.

Cecilie Flyen Øyen, Senior researcher, SINTEF Building and Infrastructure, Departement of Buildings/Environment and Building process group.

Cecilie Flyen Øyen graduated as a M.Arc. at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 1990. She is a senior researcher at SINTEF Building and Infrastructure in Oslo, and has been working as a researcher for the last seven years. After graduating and for a period of about ten years, she was practicing architectural design. Currently she is working on her doctoral thesis on climate adaptation and moisture problems in the building process, with a special focus on critical decisions in the early stages of the building process. Research areas of interest are climate change and adaptation, legal framework and its affects on building process practice, municipal framework, execution of public, regional and local policy, architectural development.

Torbjörn Olsson, Business analyst, Länsförsäkringar, Sweden

Torbjörn Olsson graduated as a M.Sc. in Civil Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He has worked in a number of positions in the Länsförsäkringar Alliance since 1975.

Together, Länsförsäkringar insure around 40% of all homes, 40% of all businesses and well over 50% of all municipalities in Sweden. Länsförsäkringar is also strong in Life, Health and Animal insurance as well as banking and mortgage loans. The effects of Climate Change is obviously of great consequence.

Torbjörn has since several years followed the issue of adaptation to Climate Change in order to illustrate how it will affect society and thus Länsförsäkringar and its customers.

Hans von Storch is director of Institute of Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre and professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg. His research interests are climate diagnostics and statistical climatology, variability and change in storminess and related marine variables (storm surges, ocean waves), regional climate change, and climate change in a transdisciplinary context. Previously, in the years 1987 - 1995, he was Senior Scientist and leader of the "Statistical Analysis and Modelling" group at the Max Planck-Institute for Meteorology.

Hans von Storch has published thirteen books, and numerous articles. He is member of the advisory boards of Journal of Climate and Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Annals of Geophysics, the Romanian Journal of Meteorology, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews/Climate Change and organizor of the GKSS School on Environmental Research. He is a member of the steering committees of the Exzellenzzentrum KlimaCampus in Hamburg, of the International Meetings on Statistical Climatology and of the BALTEX-programme. He chairs the committee for the Eduard Brückner award, the BALTEX Working Group on BACC II, which will assess in 2008-20011 climate and climate change in the Baltic Sea region, and the committee "Klimabericht für die Metropolregion Hamburg". He is a member of the "Nationalparkkuratorium Nordfriesland".

Hans studied mathematics, physics and Danish at the University of Hamburg, and received a diploma in mathematics in 1976. While a student he also worked as a programmer at the Department of Oceanography. He went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Meteorological Department of the University of Hamburg in 1979, and his "Habilitation" in 1985. In 2008 he received a honorary doctor degree from the University of Göteborg.

Jos van Alphen is a senior advisor on flood risk management at the
Ministry of Transport Public Works and Water Management, Rijkswaterstaat, Centre for Water Management. He is currently the projectleader for development of flood risk management plans. He has previously worked for the Dutch Committee for Sustainable Coastal Development, been projectleader of a national programme on flood maps, member of European Expert Circle on Flood Mapping (EXCIMAP) and the
projectleader of the 3rd International Symposium on Flood Defence "From flood defence to flood risk management"

Andrew Voysey, Secretary, ClimateWise

Andrew Voysey is the permanent Secretary to ClimateWise, responsible for co-ordinating all 41 member signatories of this voluntary, insurance sector initiative to reduce the risk of climate change. He holds a Professional Masters in "Leadership for Sustainable Development" from Forum for the Future, the UK Sustainable Development charity as well as a BA in Geography from the University of Oxford. His previous work has included working with the Lead Advisor to the UK Government on City and Regional Development.

Swenja is advising the ABI on climate change issues, including mitigation and adaptation. Key areas of work are climate impacts (incl. flooding, storms, heatwaves and health issues), greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon commerce. She has co-ordinated the ABI's response to the 2007 summer floods in the UK and sits on various research steering groups.

Prior to taking up this role in April 2007, Swenja was working in the Risk Management division of insurance broker Marsh McLennon and in the Geoscience Team at Munich Reinsurance Company. Swenja received a PhD in Economics/Political Science from Hamburg University for her work on 'Climate Change and the Insurance Industry' in 2000.

Elisabeth Meze-Hausken, Climate Researcher, Gjensidige, Norway

To appear ...

Leonard Smith, Professor and Director of CATS, London School of Economics

To appear ...

Tor Traasdahl, Chief of communication, WWF, Norway

To appear ...

Tomas Ljungqvist, Managing Director, Guy Carpenter, Sweden

Managing Director Tomas Ljungqvist heads Guy Carpenter's Stockholm office.
He is also territorial manager for the Nordic Area and the Baltic States, and a member of the Continental Europe Executive Committee of the company.

Tomas began his career with Guy Carpenter in 1982 and has worked on a variety of reinsurance programs for Nordic insurance and reinsurance companies. He has been extensively involved in product development and the build-up of the financial modeling capabilities in Europe.

Prior to joining Guy Carpenter, Tomas held various positions in the Savings Bank in Stockholm

Dr Silvio Tschudi was appointed Manager of the Cat Perils Hub Munich on January 1, 2005. Before moving to Munich, Dr Tschudi was with Swiss Re's Cat Perils team in Zurich as Earthquake specialist from 2002 to 2004. He joined Swiss Re in 2002.

He holds a PhD degree in Geology from the University of Berne and has a Master of Science degree in applied Geology and Geophysics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His PhD thesis covers the timing and synchronicity of global climate events, such as Younger Dryas and older cold periods in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere by applying methods of surface exposure dating.